News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Cal.com: The Open-Source Calendly Alternative. Parent comment

Re:Cal.com: The Open-Source Calendly Alternative by candiddevmike on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @03:03PM (#34509420)
One reason would be a CLA. Presumably to contribute to their main repo, you need to sign a CLA to ensure they can relicense this thing as needed. A separate fork wouldn't have that requirement, or shouldn't if it's in good faith.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Cal.com: The Open-Source Calendly Alternative by Phrodo_00 on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @03:14PM (#34509563)
That could be a reason, but I don't see a CLA in their contributing guide[1].

[1] https://github.com/calcom/cal.com/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Cal.com: The Open-Source Calendly Alternative by candiddevmike on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @03:20PM (#34509679)
IANAL, but that could have some interesting implications for their enterprise licensing/builds I believe. They can't relicense the code for their enterprise builds, so it stays AGPL due to linking/AGPL infection. Would be an interesting court case.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Cal.com: The Open-Source Calendly Alternative by gumby on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @03:12PM (#34509539)
Why would you not want such an agreement? It means the main maintainer(s) have standing if there is a license dispute.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Cal.com: The Open-Source Calendly Alternative by candiddevmike on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @03:15PM (#34509593)
IANAL. As a contributor? It means the company can relicense my contributions into a license that is wildly different from their current one (including no license/copyright). It affords me no benefit.

There are CLA alternatives like the Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO) that ensure the company has the "legal standing" to accept a contribution without infringing on copyright, but it doesn't give them the ability to relicense.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Cal.com: The Open-Source Calendly Alternative by freedomben on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @04:37PM (#34510820)
> It affords me no benefit.

Sure they could relicense it to something wildly different, but they can't retroactively take back old versions of it, so you can still run it as it was when you made the contributions.

I wish nobody required CLAs, but I'm glad that there are products like Cal that would (assumedly) be closed contribution otherwise due to (real or perceived) legal risk.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Cal.com: The Open-Source Calendly Alternative by fragmede on Wednesday January 25, 2023 @03:48PM (#34523962)
> It affords me no benefit.

It means they can sue for open source license violations on your behalf, something that's a bit harder if they don't actually wholly own the copyright.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Cal.com: The Open-Source Calendly Alternative by md5wasp on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @04:27PM (#34510683)
I've contributed to this repo (and I also self host Calendly) and didn't have to sign anything.

It _is_ a pain to self-host, but unlike claims elsewhere in this thread I do also self-host the API and database.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Cal.com: The Open-Source Calendly Alternative by pcthrowaway on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @04:50PM (#34510996)
> and I also self host Calendly)

Is the core of Calendly open-source?

I skimmed their repos but it looks like they don't include the "secret sauce" to self-hosting your own event+booking platform: https://github.com/orgs/calendly/repositories

[ Parent | on HN ]